Opinion

I saw an ad in the Oldham Era recently about an open meeting and attended the Fraternal Order of Police question and answer forum at the community center on the evening of Feb. 10.

The meeting I attended must have been different for the one described in a letter to the paper by Bobbie Nelson. She said Judge Voegele acted like a bully. I didn’t see anything of the kind. He acted fine, but did object when the FOP leader said there would be no television cameras allowed, which I thought was the right thing to do.

Several years ago I vacationed in southern Florida. Thousands of people were there relaxing and seeking a good time. One night, while walking down one of the brightly lit streets in Naples, I passed a Western Union office. It was deserted except for the clerk and a woman. She had a telegram in her hand and was crying her heart out. It reminded me that even in the land of good times and seas breezes, hearts can still be broken.

We are nearing the end of the 2014 Regular Session, and, much like the week before, controversy hangs over the House because of procedures used to pass Kentucky’s road plan and how to pay for it.

On Tuesday, members of the House Committee on Appropriations and Revenue received a revised version of Governor Beshear’s proposed road plan and budget less than 15 minutes before the start of the meeting, meaning legislators had only a few minutes to review a document more than 220 pages long before a vote was called.

Since long before I was elected Mayor, the City of LaGrange has required that every business purchase a business license if they transact business in the city limits. The revenue generated from this fee helps pay for the services that residents and businesses rely upon. It isn’t contingent upon whether a business maintains an office here or whether the business was conducted in the city on a single day or every single day of the year. No one is singled out, no one pays a higher or lower rate because of the particular business they are in.

Have you ever wondered about the people who heard Jesus speak and didn’t believe? They saw him heal the blind and said it was from Satan. They saw him heal the lame and they said he did it on the Sabbath. He raised Lazarus from the dead and they said he must die. How can you stand in front of the Son of God, see him do unbelievable miracles and not believe? That is the power of sin. We all struggle with it all of our lives.

A friend of mine used to constantly mumble to herself, “Fret not”. We tend to blame our troubles and our worries on the circumstances of life,on what someone else has done to us. The truth of the matter is that most of our inner unhappiness results from our fretting ourselves.

Oh, for Pete’s sake! Another bra went missing. While packing for our trip, I made a last minute decision to toss my strapless model into the suitcase. Three times I rifled through my underwear drawer, but the rarely worn item had vanished.

I considered that it could have gone into hiding as it most likely felt under-appreciated, and perhaps a little forlorn. Strapless bras are intended to push things upward into an impressive display of cleavage that makes all their hard work and effort worthwhile. However, there is no glory to be had for my poor ol’ strapless.

On the 45th day of the legislative session, the House finally passed its budget bill. This leaves us in the Senate only 13 days to work on the budget, present it in a committee, and vote on a Senate version. Thirteen days, less than two weeks, and if we take 13, our power to veto is lost.

The children lined up in the cafeteria of a religious school for lunch. At the head of the table was a large pile of apples. A teacher made a note, “Take only one, God is watching.” At the other end of the table was a large pile of chocolate chip cookies. A boy wrote a note, “Take all you want, God is watching the apples.”

At the recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) meeting, virtually every Republican of any stature stepped to the microphone to regurgitate their conservative credentials.

One cannot be too conservative for the CPAC. Try as they might, I doubt that any candidate is actually conservative enough for this group. In spite of every speaker banging the drum of conservative rhetoric, none are truly worthy.

When county government is running smoothly and there are no real issues to talk about in an election campaign, the only choice apparently left for opponents is mudslinging and character assassination.

A letter in last week’s Oldham Era from Bobbie Nelson accused me of acting like a bully in public, at fiscal court meetings seen on Channel 25 and at a recent meeting of the local Fraternal Order of Police.

No one likes to be controlled. Do you know anyone who likes it? Do your children, employees, spouse or friends thank you for trying to be totally in charge of their lives? Striving for control does not endear you to anyone. In fact, it usually gets the opposite reaction. The harder you push, the more they rebel. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. In your face or behind your back, you receive a big dose of “you can’t make me.”

As we came in from yet another snowstorm, work on the floor of the Senate centered on cleaning up statutory language, fixing some areas of recent laws as well as safety and protection for our youth from new nicotine products. Wednesday morning, thousands of Kentuckians gathered along Capitol Avenue to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s March on Frankfort. It was a cold and blustery March 5 when Dr. King led 10,000 others in a march up to the front door of our Capitol in support of the Kentucky Civil Rights Act.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love my dogs as if they were my children.

Troy and I have owned dogs all our lives and have rarely been without at least one dog at home to greet us after a long day’s work. Being a pet owner is one of the joys in my life, but it can also bring heartbreak.

March promises many things here in the Commonwealth. It looks like it will start with some winter weather before we get any relief, the college basketball season heats up, and we in the Senate tackle the most difficult part of the job, the biennial budget. As we still wait for the House to pass their version of the budget, legislation continues in our chamber.

I don’t want to discourage anyone, but it seems that I was correct in my assumption that we are never again going to see warm weather in this region of the country. It is nearly impossible to stay outdoors longer than a few minutes in these frigid temps, and people are starting to go a bit crazy with cabin fever. Last week it was reported that a mom in Cayuga not only completed her children’s baby books, but she filled each one out in Klingon.